Trip to the Nostalgia Library

BMR · 10-07-2009, 10:03 PM

So after an PnP absence (during which I played a lot of Neverwinter Nights and Bethesda Softworks CRPGs), I have resumed my GURPS adventuring. I was mildly alarmed when the Fourth Edition came out, because I have a modest library of 3e books from my US Navy days. Then I found the ludography. I am further delighted by the quality of 4e books encountered thus far. Either case causes me to consider the beginning of my collection.

Most of those first books are now long lost--the perils of leaving home for the first time (and leaving your books behind with grubby-pawed siblings). I was poor growing up, too, so those books were a major investment for their time. Of that first start, only my 2e Horror and Pulver's first edition of Ultra-Tech remains.

That early collection included Cyberworld, my favorite supplement because it offered detailed alternatives to Ultra-Tech gadgets, as well as a suitably dark science fiction setting.

So what were your first GURPS tomes? How did it make you feel to look upon the cover and flip through the pages? Any special occassions or amusing anecdotes where those early books saved the day? What did you learn from them?

If you started with 4e, that's fine. I'd also like to hear about experiences going clear back to the beginning of the system.

~~Ragitsu~~ · 10-07-2009, 10:07 PM

A little off topic, but, what class was your favorite in Neverwinter Nights?

As for me, well, I bought my books off of Amazon. Driving to the nearest bookstore is a bit difficult (including traffic), and the local store(s) which carry RPG products are fairly obscure/tend to carry lightly damaged merchandise, so I went with the main online store I use.

The weight of the books felt good in my hands, and I spent at least an hour poring over them. In particular, the images sparked my imagination.

Still, it's difficult to match the experience of going to a good bookstore.

BMR · 10-07-2009, 10:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

A little off topic, but, what class was your favorite in Neverwinter Nights?

I've been experimenting with various cross-class fighters, so I haven't tried them all out yet. I really like my Swashbuckler-Duelist in NWN 2, however. My pure fighter tank also pleases me because she has such a high AC and a hard-hitting crafted Bastard Sword. I hope Obsidian gives us at least one more good expansion so I can put my Lvl 30 character to use. Bioware had the sense to make an expansion all the way to 40, and I felt like I really got my mileage out of my PC.

capnq · 10-07-2009, 10:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMR

I was mildly alarmed when the Fourth Edition came out, because I have a modest library of 3e books from my US Navy days.

There is a ludography of 3rd edition books that get along especially well with 4th edition.

Quote:

So what were your first GURPS tomes? How did it make you feel to look upon the cover and flip through the pages?

I started with GURPS Man-to-Man, Orcslayer, and GURPS Fantasy 1st ed. (which has what is still probably my favorite GURPS cover). I recognized the Fantasy cover from its previous incarnation as a Space Gamer magazine cover.

I bought Fantasy to see whether it was sufficient, when combined with Man-to-Man, to run a fantasy campaign. Reading through it impressed me enough to want the full system in GURPS Basic Set 1st ed.

hal · 10-07-2009, 10:27 PM

My First purchase was MAN-TO-MAN back in the day, and I've purchased each book since (with a few notable exceptions). I still own a copy of THE PRISONER and had thought about selling it but somehow never got around to it. I've also picked up a few extra copies of books over time, simply because as GM, it helped to have a GM copy as well as a loaner copy for the players at the time.

I think to this day, my favorite book of all time has to be the earlier copies of GURPS MAGIC, and I can recall how much fun I had speculating on the Kingdom of Caithness back when all we had was GURPS FANTASY first edition and HARKWOOD. I recall when I got my wife involved (She was my girlfriend at the time - poor woman!) in gaming outright. She was playing a female warrior, and I had progressed far enough to the point of the encounter with the giant spider. I made it a STRONG point not to mention spider, and merely described the encounter initially (at night) as being one in which the horses were spooked. The one player (who later denied ever reading HARKWOOD - yeah, right.) immediately started looking up in the trees. He failed his IQ roll to spot the hidden spider. Then my wife said something that floored me...

"Which way are the horses pulling away from?"

From that day forward, my wife and I teamed together to enjoy gaming rather than fight about how one might game too much and the other hating it. It probably helped that she took up Fencing after I had gotten involved in it in my early days in life. She was a Nasty fencer on the strip (which translated into an almost nasty bloodthirst in game play at times). We game together still, and she plays currently, in the role as Dame Jaemee in a GURPS HARN campaign.

As GM, I can easily push her "Hot Button" by having NPC knights say things to her female knight player character such as "Lassie, ye no should be playing at being a knight. Get down off that horse before I take you off and spank your nice buttocks with the flat of me blade." (Picture Robert Shaw as Ned Lynch in SWASHBUCKLER saying something like that <g>)

That and...

"There is a child crying in the middle of the road."

That is akin to dropping a $100 bill on the ground for a miser to pass by <g>.

In any event. GURPS HARKWOOD and ORCSLAYER, as well as GURPS MAGIC hold a special place in my heart as the heyday of GURPS books printed in the beginning. Perhaps the next best "Fun" book we as a group loved, was GURPS SWASHBUCKLERS, as it is/was dear to our hearts as a genre. Someday, remind me to tell you the story of why I took another player's player character, knocked him senseless, and then dug a hole midway between the high and low tide marks, buried the character up to his head in the sand, and placed a bucket over his head while waiting for him to wake up, which he indicated by yelling his fool head off.

"Laddie, we need to talk..." <g>

Ah well. Enough on that.

arnej · 10-08-2009, 10:12 AM

I've been w/ GURPS since Man to Man, too. At some point I ended up taking my books and headed off to Silicon Valley.

It was there I subverted the CoC/D&D playing Stafnord Roleplayers with the one-two punch of Zombietown, USA and Harkwood. It was quite a while before that group played anything but GURPS after that.

Good times.

A

Stripe · 10-08-2009, 01:07 PM

I've posted once before that I'll never forget the day I begged my mom to buy that black tome, GURPS Third Edition Revised. She gave in, not knowing that it would serve me from however old you are in the eighth grade until now (I'm 28, whatever grade that would put me in).

I used it and only it until I was out of high school. Once 18, I somehow learned that there was more than just the Basic Set and started buying books.

Robots quickly became my favorite G3e book. I made tons of robots. Holy crap, I made so many. And, I would tweak their motive drives and DR and weight down to the infinitesimal. Oh, I loved that book and SO wish to have an official 4e version.

My friends and I went through our heaviest role-playing days one winter where we stayed out in a garage heated by a wood stove. My G3e Basic Set smelled like it for years, and I'm not exaggerating. I love that smell.

I would wish my life was so carefree as it was back then, but I'm lways careful about wishing such things.

Ed the Coastie · 10-08-2009, 01:29 PM

My first GURPS book was a characters book...it had all the character generation rules from the rulebook, but none of the additional material. (Alas, I can't seem to find a reference to it on the website.) It was part of the massive collection of gaming materials that I lost in the Northridge Earthquake.

RobKamm · 10-08-2009, 02:51 PM

For me it was a boxed second edition set. Somehow, and I'm really not sure how it happened, I drifted from the flock while in college (okay, it was West End's Star Wars that did it), but Arne (upthread) sat me down and gave me The Talk. I've been on the straight and narrow ever since.

The_Nightwatch · 10-08-2009, 02:55 PM

I'd played Ogre, Car Wars and Man to Man before buying GURPS Second Edition. I'd have to say my favorite book was Supers (3rd edition, I'm not switching to 4th); it gave me so many ideas of my own. (I never use anyone else's settings or anything historical except for brief campaign arcs; all the fun is in thinking up something new.)

10-07-2009, 10:03 PM	#1
BMR Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Near the Heart of the Valley, Oregon country	Trip to the Nostalgia Library So after an PnP absence (during which I played a lot of Neverwinter Nights and Bethesda Softworks CRPGs), I have resumed my GURPS adventuring. I was mildly alarmed when the Fourth Edition came out, because I have a modest library of 3e books from my US Navy days. Then I found the ludography. I am further delighted by the quality of 4e books encountered thus far. Either case causes me to consider the beginning of my collection. Most of those first books are now long lost--the perils of leaving home for the first time (and leaving your books behind with grubby-pawed siblings). I was poor growing up, too, so those books were a major investment for their time. Of that first start, only my 2e Horror and Pulver's first edition of Ultra-Tech remains. That early collection included Cyberworld, my favorite supplement because it offered detailed alternatives to Ultra-Tech gadgets, as well as a suitably dark science fiction setting. So what were your first GURPS tomes? How did it make you feel to look upon the cover and flip through the pages? Any special occassions or amusing anecdotes where those early books saved the day? What did you learn from them? If you started with 4e, that's fine. I'd also like to hear about experiences going clear back to the beginning of the system. __________________ I stick with mainstream physics right up to the point that it gets into decimal places, whereupon I gladly step back into liberal arts." --brianranzoni.com Bored with power cells? Try Paper Cells! Last edited by BMR; 10-07-2009 at 10:31 PM.

10-07-2009, 10:07 PM	#2
~~Ragitsu~~ Banned Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Portland, Oregon	Re: Trip to the Nostalgia Library A little off topic, but, what class was your favorite in Neverwinter Nights? As for me, well, I bought my books off of Amazon. Driving to the nearest bookstore is a bit difficult (including traffic), and the local store(s) which carry RPG products are fairly obscure/tend to carry lightly damaged merchandise, so I went with the main online store I use. The weight of the books felt good in my hands, and I spent at least an hour poring over them. In particular, the images sparked my imagination. Still, it's difficult to match the experience of going to a good bookstore. Last edited by Ragitsu; 10-07-2009 at 10:20 PM.

10-07-2009, 10:27 PM	#5
hal Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Buffalo, New York	Re: Trip to the Nostalgia Library My First purchase was MAN-TO-MAN back in the day, and I've purchased each book since (with a few notable exceptions). I still own a copy of THE PRISONER and had thought about selling it but somehow never got around to it. I've also picked up a few extra copies of books over time, simply because as GM, it helped to have a GM copy as well as a loaner copy for the players at the time. I think to this day, my favorite book of all time has to be the earlier copies of GURPS MAGIC, and I can recall how much fun I had speculating on the Kingdom of Caithness back when all we had was GURPS FANTASY first edition and HARKWOOD. I recall when I got my wife involved (She was my girlfriend at the time - poor woman!) in gaming outright. She was playing a female warrior, and I had progressed far enough to the point of the encounter with the giant spider. I made it a STRONG point not to mention spider, and merely described the encounter initially (at night) as being one in which the horses were spooked. The one player (who later denied ever reading HARKWOOD - yeah, right.) immediately started looking up in the trees. He failed his IQ roll to spot the hidden spider. Then my wife said something that floored me... "Which way are the horses pulling away from?" From that day forward, my wife and I teamed together to enjoy gaming rather than fight about how one might game too much and the other hating it. It probably helped that she took up Fencing after I had gotten involved in it in my early days in life. She was a Nasty fencer on the strip (which translated into an almost nasty bloodthirst in game play at times). We game together still, and she plays currently, in the role as Dame Jaemee in a GURPS HARN campaign. As GM, I can easily push her "Hot Button" by having NPC knights say things to her female knight player character such as "Lassie, ye no should be playing at being a knight. Get down off that horse before I take you off and spank your nice buttocks with the flat of me blade." (Picture Robert Shaw as Ned Lynch in SWASHBUCKLER saying something like that <g>) That and... "There is a child crying in the middle of the road." That is akin to dropping a $100 bill on the ground for a miser to pass by <g>. In any event. GURPS HARKWOOD and ORCSLAYER, as well as GURPS MAGIC hold a special place in my heart as the heyday of GURPS books printed in the beginning. Perhaps the next best "Fun" book we as a group loved, was GURPS SWASHBUCKLERS, as it is/was dear to our hearts as a genre. Someday, remind me to tell you the story of why I took another player's player character, knocked him senseless, and then dug a hole midway between the high and low tide marks, buried the character up to his head in the sand, and placed a bucket over his head while waiting for him to wake up, which he indicated by yelling his fool head off. "Laddie, we need to talk..." <g> Ah well. Enough on that. __________________ Newest Alaconius Lecture now up: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/scourge-of-shards-schpdx Go to bottom of page to see lectures 1-11

10-08-2009, 10:12 AM	#6
arnej Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ft Collins, CO	Re: Trip to the Nostalgia Library I've been w/ GURPS since Man to Man, too. At some point I ended up taking my books and headed off to Silicon Valley. It was there I subverted the CoC/D&D playing Stafnord Roleplayers with the one-two punch of Zombietown, USA and Harkwood. It was quite a while before that group played anything but GURPS after that. Good times. A

10-08-2009, 01:07 PM	#7
Stripe Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Midwest, USA	Re: Trip to the Nostalgia Library I've posted once before that I'll never forget the day I begged my mom to buy that black tome, GURPS Third Edition Revised. She gave in, not knowing that it would serve me from however old you are in the eighth grade until now (I'm 28, whatever grade that would put me in). I used it and only it until I was out of high school. Once 18, I somehow learned that there was more than just the Basic Set and started buying books. Robots quickly became my favorite G3e book. I made tons of robots. Holy crap, I made so many. And, I would tweak their motive drives and DR and weight down to the infinitesimal. Oh, I loved that book and SO wish to have an official 4e version. My friends and I went through our heaviest role-playing days one winter where we stayed out in a garage heated by a wood stove. My G3e Basic Set smelled like it for years, and I'm not exaggerating. I love that smell. I would wish my life was so carefree as it was back then, but I'm lways careful about wishing such things. __________________ . "How the heck am I supposed to justify that whatever I feel like doing at any particular moment is 'in character' if I can't say 'I'm chaotic evil!'"? —Jeff Freeman

10-08-2009, 01:29 PM	#8
Ed the Coastie Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Sierra Vista, Arizona	Re: Trip to the Nostalgia Library My first GURPS book was a characters book...it had all the character generation rules from the rulebook, but none of the additional material. (Alas, I can't seem to find a reference to it on the website.) It was part of the massive collection of gaming materials that I lost in the Northridge Earthquake. __________________ "It's never to early to start beefing up your obituary." -- The Most Interesting Man in the World

10-08-2009, 02:51 PM	#9
RobKamm Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Chicago	Re: Trip to the Nostalgia Library For me it was a boxed second edition set. Somehow, and I'm really not sure how it happened, I drifted from the flock while in college (okay, it was West End's Star Wars that did it), but Arne (upthread) sat me down and gave me The Talk. I've been on the straight and narrow ever since.

10-08-2009, 02:55 PM	#10
The_Nightwatch Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: The top of a skyscraper downtown	Re: Trip to the Nostalgia Library I'd played Ogre, Car Wars and Man to Man before buying GURPS Second Edition. I'd have to say my favorite book was Supers (3rd edition, I'm not switching to 4th); it gave me so many ideas of my own. (I never use anyone else's settings or anything historical except for brief campaign arcs; all the fun is in thinking up something new.)